


under socialism, the reverse is true

by indigostohelit



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Nuclear Warfare, Quantum Mechanics, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 00:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11368881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: (There will always be a war. There will always be a soldier.)





	under socialism, the reverse is true

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fault of Gamble, who connected the ants to Napoleon Solo, and made me aware I had to write this before I read Copenhagen.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

.

_Two brothers live in America, and one immigrates to the Soviet Union. They know his letters may be censored, so they make an agreement: if what he writes in his letters is true, he will write them in black ink. If it is false, he will write them in red ink._

_A month later, the brother at home receives a letter. It reads:_

_My dear brother - conditions in the Soviet Union could not be better! I live in total freedom and want for nothing. There is only one small thing of which there is a shortage - red ink..._

.

The American has his feet on the ladder.

"What are you doing?" says the Russian. He is sitting at the other end of the room, string in his hands. He's playing with it, making it do all the old tricks; it weaves through his fingers like a labyrinth.

"You know what I'm doing," says the American. His hair is black, slicked back and smooth. He's smiling with his mouth and not his eyes.

The Russian looks at the tangle of string in his hands. It's a cat's cradle.

"I know," he says, and pulls it, pulls it, until his fingers swell and go white.

The American climbs down the ladder, and sits down on the floor of the silo.

.

"In my city," says the American, "when I fell asleep, when I was a child, I would hear pops and blasts outside my window. In the summer I thought they were fireworks."

"I, too," says the Russian.

"I never thought they were fireworks," says the American. "I knew who was shooting at who. I knew how to handle a gun."

"I, too," says the Russian.

"I was afraid," says the American. "I wasn't afraid of anything. I didn't know any better. I knew what I was doing."

"I, too," says the Russian.

.

The silo is just wide enough for two men to lie down in, foot to head, and about thirty feet tall. The walls are concrete, and bare. The ladder is set against the wall, and it reaches to the top. It's in good condition. It could hold one man's weight, or two, or three.

The Russian sleeps curled up on his side, with his nose pressed to the wall. The American laughs at him for it - the childishness. The American sits behind the Russian while he sleeps, waits for him to wake and startle and flail out.

The Russian, in his sleep, turns over. He reaches out a hand - unconscious, unseeing, unknowing if not unobserved - and presses it to the American's thigh. Curls himself around the American's knees.

The American, who is well-trained, does not move.

The Russian will not remember this when he wakes. The Russian will not believe the American if he tells him that it happened, that it was so and is so and God forbid it should not be so. Reason suggests this will not make the story more false. Reason suggests that real things remain real, whether or not they are believed in. Only unreal things disappear when you shut your eyes.

The American sleeps on his back, with his hands crossed over his chest.

Sometimes, in the night, he opens his eyes without waking. The Russian watches him at those times; he leans against the wall of the silo, does not move, waits as the American's sleeping eyes drift from thing to thing to him.

The American believes the Russian, when he tells him that this happened. The American, as a rule, believes everything.

.

_Stierlitz, the famous spy from the television show, wakes up in a prison cell with no memory of how he got there. He thinks quickly: "If someone comes in wearing a black uniform, they must be SS, so I'll say I'm Standartenfuhrer Stierlitz. If they come in wearing a green uniform, they're Soviet, so I'll admit I'm their spy."_

_A nurse comes in wearing a white uniform and says, "You should really ease up on the vodka while you're filming, Comrade Tikhonov!"_

.

The American, as a rule, believes everything. The Russian, as a rule, believes nothing.

There is a calendar on the wall of the silo. It seems unlikely; it seems impossible. Neither of them knows which worker, climbing down the ladder, might have wished for a list of all the days in 1989; certainly not the Russian. Almost certainly not the American - though the American hardly ever tells the truth, and so what he might wish for and where he might go are nearly always opaque, like window-glass gone white with frost.

When they came into the silo, it was summer. They both remember this; they both believe this. It must therefore reasonably be true.

German summers are crisp and fair. The American remembers beer gardens in Munich; the Russian remembers trade fairs in Leipzig. Both of them remember the trees in bloom, and then in leaf; both remember leaves on the Spree.

In the small hours of the morning - there is no sunlight in the silo, and no clocks, and so all timekeeping is an estimate at best and a prayer at worst - in the small hours of the morning, the American tells the Russian all the fairy tales he knows.

The calendar is open to November. A Thursday is circled.

.

The American, as a rule, believes nothing. The Russian, as a rule, believes everything.

The calendar is open to November. A Tuesday is circled.

The American says, "Once, long ago-"

"How long ago?" says the Russian.

The American looks up at the calendar, counts on his fingers. "Three hundred and sixty-eight - no. Three hundred and forty-one years ago."

"Not so long," says the Russian.

"A very long time, I think," says the American.

"You would think so," says the Russian, "cowboy." He settles himself against the wall of the silo, tips his head back against the wall. "Keep telling the story."

"Once, long ago, there was a soldier," says the American.

"A soldier for what cause?" says the Russian.

"No cause," says the American. "He fought for his king and his country."

"A fool," says the Russian. "A working man full of a lie that his king would care for him, and his country meant more than his labor."

"It may be so," says the American.

"Go on," says the Russian.

"Once, long ago," says the American, "there was a soldier coming home from war."

"Had he won or lost the war?" says the Russian.

"Surely," says the American, "it doesn't matter. If he was a fool full of lies, how does it matter which lies had triumphed?"

"How can it not matter?" says the Russian.

The American says, "The story doesn't say."

"A poor story," says the Russian, and closes his eyes.

"You could tell it instead, if you like," says the American.

"I can't," says the Russian, and, "You always tell it better, you know that."

The American says, "I know."

The Russian says, "How does the story end?"

.

There is no food in the silo. There is not meat, or drink. There is only a little slumber; there is no roof, but there is no rain.

Weeks have passed.

Months have passed.

"It's important," says the Russian, "to know how you came to a place."

"Why?" says the American.

"If you can't remember how you got there," says the Russian, "it may be a dream."

The American thinks that over. He's holding the string, now, stretching the cat's cradle between one finger and the next. In his hands it looks less substantial than it did in the Russian's; a trick of the light makes it seem to pass through the palm of his hand.

"How does that help?" he says.

"If it's a dream," says the Russian, "you can wake up."

"Not in my experience," says the American.

.

_A man is walking down the street when he falls into a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out._

_A friend walks by, and sees the man, who calls for help. The friend jumps into the hole. Our man says, "Hey, are you stupid? Now we're both down here!" His friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."_

.

_Radio Armenia! Radio Armenia! Pravda has told us that American capitalism is at the very edge of a cliff! We would like to know - where, then, are the Soviets?_

_Dear listeners, as Pravda has told you, you should already know - Communism is always one step ahead!_

.

The Russian says, "Did he win the war?"

"The soldier," says the American, "in the fairy tale."

"Him," says the Russian. "Did he win the war?"

"I told you," the American says, "the story doesn't say. The war happened, and he lived through it. He came home."

The Russian watches the American through his eyelashes. He's pacing the walls of the silo, the American is; his hands are in his pockets, and his eyes are hooded, darting, as if he's searching for an exit. The ladder is behind him.

"Once, long ago, there was a scientist," the Russian says.

"A capitalist, or a communist?" says the American. He isn't looking at the Russian.

"A German," says the Russian. "This scientist had a cat, and he put the cat in a box."

The American stops moving; it's sudden, startling, like a string that's been plucked and then pinched. "I know this story," he says.

"The scientist put in the box also, an atom which might or might not decay," says the Russian. "If it did decay, then a mechanism would release poison into the box, and the cat would die. If it did not decay, then no poison would be released, and the cat would live. How does the story end?"

"The cat died," says the American.

"The cat lived," says the Russian.

The American stands still as a stone for one heartbeat, two; then he's in motion again, pressing against the walls of the silo. "If you leave the cat in the box long enough, it dies anyway," he says. "If you take the cat out of the box, it dies anyway. You just need to wait long enough. The cat always dies. It's not a good story."

The Russian says, "Then climb the ladder."

.

Time has passed since they came into the silo.

The American says it can't have been longer than a few weeks. The American usually lies.

The Russian says nothing; he is a Russian. He counted the days, a long time ago, scratched them in tallies on the concrete of the walls. He can't see them now; they're faded with wind, or rain, or time.

"If your side loses the war," says the American, "they'll tear down all the old factories, and let everyone live where they like. They'll have to burn everyone's records in Berlin. They'll bury Lenin's body in an unmarked grave."

"If my side loses the war," says the Russian, "all the old factories will stay up. They'll paint over them, and give them new names. They'll keep the records and files in Berlin, and let tourists in to see them, to marvel at the past. They'll keep Lenin's body in Moscow, just as it was."

He throws the American the cat's cradle. The American lets it lose its shape, begins weaving it between his hands again.

"If your side loses the war," says the Russian, "they'll call your capital Khrushchevgrad. They'll take the money away from the rich men, and give jobs to your women, and they'll celebrate labor in May again. They'll break down the walls of your prisons."

"If my side loses the war," says the American, "the rich men will keep their money, and the women will keep their jobs. They'll call Washington Washington, and New York New York, and they'll build new prisons, and thank God the war has ended."

He throws the cat's cradle back.

"We could look up the ladder," says the Russian.

"Yes," says the American. "We could look."

.

The cat is dead; the cat is alive.

The war is won; the war is lost. The war is over.

The Russian's head is on the American's lap. The American has his hands in the Russian's hair. The cat's cradle is a hand drum; is candles; is two crowns; is a soldier's bed. Is string.

The war isn't over.

How does the story end?

.

_A judge, walking out of a courtroom, is laughing so hard he is wiping tears from his eyes. A lawyer asks, "What are you laughing about?"_

_"Oh," says the judge, "I just heard the funniest joke!"_

_"Well," says the lawyer, "tell it!"_

_"Are you stupid?" says the judge. "I just sentenced a man to ten years for telling that joke!"_

**Author's Note:**

> All jokes liberally stolen from the Soviet Union, except the story about a man in a hole, which is stolen from The West Wing.
> 
> The whole thing is actually also the fault of [these ants, who fell down a pipe in a Polish nuclear silo and are doing surprisingly well for themselves.](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/bizarre-ant-colony-discovered-in-an-abandoned-polish-nuclear-weapons-bunker/)


End file.
